Feeling quite confident in leveled up self and my newly trained skill with the club, I boldly walked into the classroom where the rats had came from and looked for an opponent to test my skills against. Much to my surprise, I saw one almost instantly. Unfortunately, I also saw about twenty more at almost in the same instant, and they saw me. As my eyes widened in surprise, the beasts – which had apparently built themselves a nice tangled up nest here – hissed in unison and swarmed in my direction.

Now, I’d like to say that I’d bravely fought and vanquished the beasts and earned a dozen levels and got my achievement, but that would be completely lying. I did manage to send one of the creatures flying with a resounding crash that knocked it completely across the room and through one of the windows, but after that I was swarmed under a horde of the beasts, knocked down, and had a notification window popup.

DING!

You have been slain!

I guess that’ll teach me to get too full of myself, too fast. Apparently one level’s difference isn’t enough to allow me to destroy a whole rat swarm while already injured. Once again, I was a floating little ghost spirit who really couldn’t do much more than stare and attempt to float around.

Watching the clock in the room, I tried to practice floating and moving for about the next hour while the rats feasted on my body, but the pain of being eaten made it very difficult to concentrate. Cloudme had traveled all of about 4 feet, and I’d gotten 2 points in Spiritual Manipulation and another point in Spiritual Endurance when I felt that familiar burning torment that said I was going to be reborn once more.

What was left of my corpse went up in flame, rats screeched and scurried all around the room, and as the flames died out my body was renewed once more. I was weak, dazed, and before I even had a chance to get my bearings to make a dash for the exit, a ding went off and a new popup appeared.

DING!

You have been slain!

The agitated rats had swarmed me and I was dead and being tormented once again, even before I had any chance to react. The first time they’d killed me, I suffered as they fed on me. This time around they weren’t interested in eating, but only taking out their pain and anger on my corpse. My body was literally ripped apart, scattered, and then covered by multiple rats urinating on what was left of me – and I had the privilege of feeling and experiencing it all.

My first death in the room here, Cloudme had mainly just sat and suffered while trying to endure the torment of the rats feasting. This time, I knew I had to do better. Do more! The pain was just as intense as before, but I knew if Cloudme didn’t get away, I was going to be stuck here in an endless cycle of torment.

Stare. Wince. Concentrate. Float. Stare. Scream from the pain. Concentrate, Float.

The next hour I achieved 3 more points in Spiritual Manipulation and another point in Spiritual Endurance, and then I braced myself expecting the burning torment of rebirth to begin again. I was convinced that I was going to endure the pain of being reborn this time and make an escape out of this death trap of a room, but I was disappointed. The burning never came and I was stuck as Cloudme.

For the next half hour or so, I fretted and worried that I may have ran out of lives in this game for good. A lot of games only give you three lives to play, and I’d lost all mine. And then I realized I’d already had more than three lives; I’d experienced three deaths already, so I’ve already had FOUR lives. And then I realized that it didn’t matter, Cloudme or Realme, I still needed to get the heck out of this room!

Stare. Concentrate. Float. Stare. Concentrate, Float. Stare. Concentrate. Float.

Another half hour an another increase in Spiritual Manipulation and I’d traveled about half way back to the door frame when I felt the burn beginning once more. Glancing up at the clock hanging on the classroom wall, it’d been two hours from my death before this rebirth. Cloudme gritted my teeth, or at least the cloudy part that I imagined would be my teeth, and I tried my best to endure the burning torment this time.

When the smoke cleared, I stumbled to my feet and staggered for the door. I’d actually managed to make it almost there before that annoying ding and message popped back up.

DING!

You have been slain!

Three hours, and several more skill increases later I was reborn once again. And died to a swarm of rats that chased me out of the room and down the hallway. Four hours after that, a few more skill increases, I was reborn once again. This time I made it back almost all the way down the hall to where the goblin igloo was before the swarm caught up to me and killed me once again. They dragged my corpse back down the hallway with them and Cloudme managed to make it into the igloo room once more in the five hours it took me to be reborn this time.

It seems like I was back where I started once again: naked, alone, and exhausted in the room the goblin had built its igloo in. I tried to organize my thoughts about what all had happened; apparently each death took me an hour longer than the previous one to recover from; but I was too mentally drained to actually think much about anything. I staggered over to the far corner, past all the corpses, and just flopped to the ground and let the darkness of blissful unawareness take me once again.